


Days Gone

by solynacea



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character Study, DMC Week, DMC Week 2020, Gen, Hurt, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:20:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26818717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solynacea/pseuds/solynacea
Summary: A look at the lives of the Sparda family and the tragedies they've endured, starting with the years before Eva's death.
Relationships: Eva/Sparda (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Days Gone

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for DMC Week 2020 using the prompts that were provided. Some of the days have gotten swapped because I'm an idiot, but I wanted to do a study of what the Sparda family's life was like before Eva's death and after. 
> 
> This chapter is based off of Day 1: Bone | Blood | Weapon

“It’s in the blood,” Sparda says.

Eva looks up from the book she’s been reading. The lounge is bright and warm, and through the window comes the late-June sun and the sound of her boys playing in the yard, so she shouldn’t be anything other than comfortable. Yet there’s  _ something  _ to her lover’s face, a darkness in his eyes, a pinching at the corners of his mouth, that leaves her feeling very, very cold. “I’m sorry?”

“The blood,” he repeats. On his lap is one of the swords he plans to leave to their children— _ Dante,  _ she thinks—and he runs his fingers over the edge with a wry smile.  _ “My  _ blood, to be exact. Tell me, do you know what demons do to one another?” 

Eva shakes her head. She knows what he is, of course, has known since he first stumbled into her garden with a dazed look and a wound in his side that oozed a thick, purple fluid more like tar than blood, but he’s never told her of his life before they met. Sometimes, when she can’t sleep, she lies awake and stares at him in the dark, the handsome face he wears now so unlike the monstrous one that belongs to his true nature that she can almost convince herself she dreamt it. But that otherness is there: in their love-making, in the quick and easy way he heals, in the inhuman strength and speed he possesses. Now, he looks only weary, tired, and she marks her place and goes to him, kneeling next to his chair and reaching up to touch his face.

Sparda leans into her, nuzzling her palm and looking at her with those sad, grave eyes. “They kill, of course. It’s in their nature, or what little of it there might be. Mortals are food and hunted for sport, their torture a delight. And they will turn on their own for little more than petty amusement, alliances turned to slaughters at the simplest change of whim.”

“Are you worried that Dante and Vergil will be that way?” she asks, keeping her voice low and soothing.

He considers her for a moment, her not-quite husband. Then he shakes his head. “I could not say. I had a brother once, who I loved more than anything in the world. Yet when the time came for me to make a choice, I attempted to kill him, and sealed him away when that failed. You want to ask if I regret it,” he chuckles wryly, “and I do not. It was a necessary thing. Ugly, yes, but necessary.”

“Sparda,” she begins, only for her voice to die in her throat when the change occurs.

It’s slower than it was years ago, before the twins were born, and starts in his face. The skin shifts, melting and reforming like wax as the eyes take on a glassy shine and the healthy, olive tone of his complexion fades to an ashen gray. Horns grow from the hair, which hardens and curls into a helmet, and the armor flows from there to coat the rest of him, until the knee she’s balancing herself on is rough and cold to the touch. “What legacy,” he asks with a tongue not suited for human speech, “am I leaving for them?”

To that, she has no answer. So she takes his hand and pulls him from his seat and up the stairs, knowing that the boys will be out all afternoon, and in their bedroom she comforts him as best as she knows how, whispering words of love and devotion into his ear until both of them are spent and the sky outside has gone the pale umber of evening. And when the twins return, covered in mud and scrapes and bruises, she cleans them up and makes a dinner fit to feed a small army, and she helps them get ready for bed, and all the while that question nags at her.  _ What legacy?  _ she thinks, soaking in the bath.  _ One of a good father, if a little absent and strange.  _ But the image of that strange smile and the sword on his lap will not leave her, and the chill of it remains long after she has fallen asleep.

She finds Vergil in Sparda’s study the next morning. Eva pauses in the doorway, a dusting rag held uncertainly to her chest as she takes him in, a boy who is small and precocious for his age, so unlike his rambunctious younger brother. His head is tilted back so that he can look up at the sword on the mantle; this one is much more Oriental in design, made to be wielded with grace and poise, and it will belong to him one day. Which means that it’s only natural that he’d show interest, isn’t it? Why, then, does it fill her with the same discomfort from yesterday? Why does it bring back the nightmares she thought she had shaken off? 

Trying to bring some of the normalcy back to her day, Eva forces a smile to her face and knocks on the open door. “You know you aren’t meant to be in here when your father is gone.”

Without turning around, Vergil replies, “He said it was fine.”

“Did he?” She steps inside, moving to stand next to her son. “Well, I suppose it’s alright, then. Where’s Dante?”

“Out,” he answers vaguely.

That could mean anything from the yard to the playground to the woods to accompanying Sparda on whatever errand he’s running, and she kneels and places her hands on Vergil’s shoulders, looking up at the sword with him. “Do you like it?”

He hums. “It’s pretty.”

“Yes,” she agrees, “it is.” And that isn’t a lie. The hilt is wrapped in a lovely blue fabric that complements the intricately crafted golden hilt wonderfully. What she does not say is that she hopes he never has to use it. “Your father used it once to do a great thing. Did you know that?”

Finally, Vergil looks at her, his eyes wide with a wonder he so rarely shows. “He did?”

“Mm-hm. You see, there were once demons who wanted to hurt people, just because they thought that they should be able to. Your father used this sword to seal them away.” She glances up at it. “He calls it  _ Yamato.” _

Curious now, Vergil allows her to lead him to the armchair in the corner, and he climbs into her lap, something he has not done in over a year. “What about the other one?”

“Hm.” She smooths his hair back. “He said its name is  _ Rebellion,  _ and serves a much different purpose. It’s meant to protect the weak and avenge the injustices they’ve suffered.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Sounds stupid.”

“Do you really think so?”

“No,” he admits, “but it’s for Dante, and Dante is stupid.”

“Vergil, you know that’s not true,” she admonishes.

He frowns at her, looking uncharastically like his father. “It is. He hides my stuff and always wants to do what I do. He won’t leave me alone unless I play with him, and then he gets me in trouble because he plays rough and you don’t like it.”

She bundles him into her arms with a sigh. It’s easy to fall back into the role of matriarch in the daylight, particularly with the familiar friction between her sons to occupy herself with. “You must be patient with him. He only wants to spend time with you.”

“I wish he wouldn’t,” he mutters. 

“That’s enough of that,” she says. Downstairs, she hears the door open, followed by voices—one chattering excitedly, the other answering in the short gaps allowed by the first—and Eva nudges Vergil down, dusting specks of dirt from his shirt. “Go down and see if your father needs any help, and then you can finish your chores.”

“Yes, mother.”

She kisses the top of his head and sends him on his way. There’s a hint of guilt for it; out of the twins, Vergil is far easier to handle than Dante, preferring books and tidiness over the haphazard, yet harmless mess that seems to follow Dante wherever he goes. That makes it rare for her to display any sort of shortness with him, but—

_ I had a brother once . . . I tried to kill him.  _

—she doesn’t want him to push Dante away. 

The rest of her day passes in the normal routine. Vergil and Dante do their chores, while Eva takes care of the house and Sparda works in the yard. They eat lunch together, her reminding all of them to fold their napkins in their lap and to keep their elbows off of the table, and then the boys go out to play while she catches up on her sewing and Sparda reads the newspapers he insisted on subscribing to. He reads her the horoscopes and more interesting classifieds, but otherwise the only sound is the soft music that comes from the record player. The odd mood from yesterday has disappeared. When she looks out of the window, she sees her sons sitting in the grass with one of Vergil’s books open between them, and she smiles.


End file.
